Urban/Industrial Portrait shoot

[Silverback]

Hi all,
Hoping I can squeeze you for a bit of advice.
My friend Jemma & I are planning a photo shoot this Sunday but it will be a first for both of us.
We have done loads of shoots together in a studio, but for this shoot we are going to head to a local Industrial estate and aim to get some gritty, maybe a bit "rocky" photos.

My kit is as you see in my signature with the addition of some CP filter (on all the lenses), and the flash will be off camera.

While I'm after some general advice/ideas, I am worried about a couple of things.

• Blowing the sky to light the subject
• messy background rather than a cool industrial look

Thanks very much for your time in advance.

Gaz

 

[JerryPH]

Meter for the sky... compensate the amount of light coming on your clients with off camera flash.

Light has DOF. By controlling your light and camera settings you can set the background to anything from white to black and anything in between. If your background is not to your liking, use light to hide it. Before doing that, find the background that you want, it will make the pics more interesting.

 

[Silverback]

Hi Jerry,
Appreciate you taking the time to offer this advice.
Thanks for the fill flash advice, this should save me some time in photoshop later :hug::

By controlling your light and camera settings you can set the background to anything from white to black and anything in between.

I have to admit that I don't fully undeerstand what you are saying here?
It stands a chance that I am just being stupid and missing the point!

I am going to try and get down to the site we will be shooting at before the event, that way I should be able to pick a couple of good locations.

 

[JerryPH]

Hi Jerry,
Appreciate you taking the time to offer this advice.
Thanks for the fill flash advice, this should save me some time in photoshop later :hug::



I have to admit that I don't fully undeerstand what you are saying here?
It stands a chance that I am just being stupid and missing the point!

I am going to try and get down to the site we will be shooting at before the event, that way I should be able to pick a couple of good locations.

Here you go:

http://jerryphpics.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-dof-of-light.html

Something that I wrote up one day when I was bored.

 

[Silverback]

Jerry,
That is fantastic......
Thank you so much for that, and your blog is now bookmarked!

Thought I better reply now before you loose me to your blog

 

[Bifurcator]

Also if you have a tripod or beanbag-pod with you then the elimination of blown out skies is achievable by taking two exposures and "exposure-blending" them in PS when you get back home. I do this sometimes... it works without looking like bizarre surrealistic art.

 

[notelliot]

what've you got for lighting? something like a 400ws strobe would be mostly enough to kill a lot of ambient - ie, the sky. they're not that expensive, if you're looking seriously. you can find kits for less than $500 pretty easy. or if you have speedlites, they'll usually pop out enough light to kill the sky, too.

 

[Silverback]

Cheers for the advice all.
Will have a go at trying everything and see what turns out the best results.